Last month, WeForest,FAO’s Forest and Water Programme, and GIZdelivered a
capacity-building workshop on forest and
water in Mekelle, Ethiopia. ICRAF’s GeoScience Lab was involved in the
organisation and delivery of the workshop through Aida Bargues Tobella, who was
one of the facilitators.

The workshop, entitled ‘Building forest-water knowledge and capacity for Forest and Landscape
Restoration’, was held from 18th-24th June and aimed at strengthening and building the local knowledge and capacity in measuring and
monitoring forest-water relationships in the context ofForest and Landscape Restoration (FLR).

The workshop trained a total
of 16 participants from various organizations following a participatory, train
the trainer approach. Among the participating organizations there were local
and international NGOs and research institutes such as the Ethiopian
Environment and Forest Research Institute (EFRI), World Vision, Naturschutzbund
Deutschland (NABU), Deutsche Gesellschaft
für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and Mekelle
University. With the tools provided during the workshop, the participants will
now be able to train other members within their own organisations on forest and
water monitoring.

Participants in action during group work, discussions and presentations. Photos by Aida Bargues Tobella

The participants gained knowledge and skills through a set of various learning activities including
group work, exchange of experience and discussions, and field-based exercises.
During the field visit, the participants learned how to measure soil
infiltration capacity, which is a key variable controlling soil and groundwater
recharge, surface runoff generation and flooding.

Participants in action during the field visit. Photos by Aida Bargues Tobella and Victoria Gutierrez

Another important output of
the workshop was a draft forest-water monitoring plan for WeForest’s Desa’a FLR project. Desa’a Forest, a
national forest priority area of 154,000 hectares, is the last ecosystem
of its kind in Northern Ethiopia, consisting of dry afromontane secondary
forest dominated by Juniperus procera
and Olea europaea. This area lies
between the Tigrarian plateau and the Afar lowlands, ranging between 3100 and
900 meters above sea level. During the last 30 years, about 40 percent of the
closed forest cover within the Desa’a Forest has been lost, and many other
areas are heavily degraded. Over half a million people in Tigray and Afar regions depend on this
ecosystem for their livelihoods, food and water security. After two and a half
years of pre-implementation work, WeForest will begin to conserve and restore
core forest areas in Desa'a, working hand-in-hand with local communities. A
multi-strategy approach that integrates forest-water interactions is a vital
aspect of WeForest's FLR approach.

Dragon tree (Dracaena ombet) is a common species in the Afar lowlands, Photos by Aida Bargues Tobella

Water scarcity poses serious constrains to primary
productivity and livelihood opportunities in drylands. At the same time, FLR is
being extensively promoted and adopted as a tool to restore ecosystem
functionality and enhance the provision of ecosystem services. Globally, Africa
has been identified as the continent having the greatest land area with forest
and landscape restoration opportunities. Some examples of large-scale FLR initiatives in African
drylands include AFR100 (African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative) and
the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative. It is therefore extremely
important to monitor the impacts of on-going FLR restoration activities on
water resources in African drylands. Likewise, there is a need for forest and
water considerations to be integrated into forest and landscape management
practices as well. In a step towards achieving this, workshop participants
formed the Ethiopia ForWater Interest Group, which will focus on strengthening this new network of forest-water stakeholders to
facilitate and scale-up forests and water interventions in FLR and Integrated
Watershed Management (IWM).